The MIT Press
8 total works
Jagish Bhagwati firmly believes that those who work at the frontiers of economics should also get down into the trenches of public policy in the only way they can: through advocacy. His frequent writings in newspapers and magazines are further testimony to his conviction that academics can best do public good by becoming a public nuisance. Running through his writings is the contrary voice, questioning popular positions, challenging the consensus. Bhagwati has an agenda to advance, a vision of the good society that economic policy must help to shape. The good society he has sought over the years is one whose economics embrace openness, in particular in trade and immigration, and whose politics are democratic, not just for the elite few but with the effective participation of the many, including women and minorities. This text offers a selection of the author's policy writings from the 1990s. The title, from a James Schuyler poem, suggests the fluidity of a stream, contrasted with a stagnant pool, as well as the windows the author seeks to open to bring in fresh air.
The image captures the essence of the author's writings, which oppossed the demonization of Japan in the 1980s and early 1990s, and which aims to expose the folly of current U.S. policy equating free trade with free trade areas, challenge the bipartisan bashing of illegal immigrants, refute the conventional view that democracy hinders development, and other issues.
The image captures the essence of the author's writings, which oppossed the demonization of Japan in the 1980s and early 1990s, and which aims to expose the folly of current U.S. policy equating free trade with free trade areas, challenge the bipartisan bashing of illegal immigrants, refute the conventional view that democracy hinders development, and other issues.
Lectures on International Trade
by Jagdish N. Bhagwati, Arvind Panagariya, and T N Srinivasan
Published 23 June 1983
The greatest strength of this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of Lectures on International Trade is its rigorous algebraic and geometric treatment of the various models and results of trade theory. The authors, who now include Arvind Panagariya, offer both policy insights and empirical applications. They have added nine entirely new chapters as well as new sections to several existing chapters (e.g., a greatly expanded treatment of the growing theory of preferential trade agreements).
These two volumes contain seventy essays chosen largely for the originality of their contributions. The first volume contains several classic papers. Among them are the many contributions to the theory of distortions in the 1960s which laid the foundations of the postwar theory of commercial policy. Also included are Bhagwati's important papers of the 1970s and 1980s which have shaped a new revolution in the theory of trade and welfare: the political-economy-theoretic analysis of DUP (directly-unproductive profit-seeking) activities. Influential essays on the nonequivalence of tariffs and quotas, immiserizing growth, cost-benefit analysis in open economies, and other major areas of trade theory are covered. The second volume presents essays that have opened up new areas of analysis in the theory of international trade and in the associated fields of public finance and developmental economics.
Bhagwati's seminal work on the novel question of the appropriate income tax jurisdiction in the presence of international factor mobility, his well-known analyses of the consequences of skilled migration, the problem of the optimal choice between international capital and labor mobility, are all included.
Bhagwati's seminal work on the novel question of the appropriate income tax jurisdiction in the presence of international factor mobility, his well-known analyses of the consequences of skilled migration, the problem of the optimal choice between international capital and labor mobility, are all included.
These two volumes contain seventy essays chosen largely for the originality of their contributions. The first volume contains several classic papers. Among them are the many contributions to the theory of distortions in the 1960s which laid the foundations of the postwar theory of commercial policy. Also included are Bhagwati's important papers of the 1970s and 1980s which have shaped a new revolution in the theory of trade and welfare: the political-economy-theoretic analysis of DUP (directly-unproductive profit-seeking) activities. Influential essays on the nonequivalence of tariffs and quotas, immiserizing growth, cost-benefit analysis in open economies, and other major areas of trade theory are covered. The second volume presents essays that have opened up new areas of analysis in the theory of international trade and in the associated fields of public finance and developmental economics.
Bhagwati's seminal work on the novel question of the appropriate income tax jurisdiction in the presence of international factor mobility, his well-known analyses of the consequences of skilled migration, the problem of the optimal choice between international capital and labor mobility, are all included.
Bhagwati's seminal work on the novel question of the appropriate income tax jurisdiction in the presence of international factor mobility, his well-known analyses of the consequences of skilled migration, the problem of the optimal choice between international capital and labor mobility, are all included.
"Political Economy and International Economics" is the fifth volume of collected essays by the noted economist Jagdish Bhagwati. Following "Essays in International Economic Theory "(edited by Robert Feenstra) and "Essays in Development Economics "(edited by Gene Grossman), it reflects Bhagwati's wide range of interests and his rare ability to combine economic theory and political analysis.Many of Bhagwati's writings provide fresh insights into old problems, from the theory of commercial policy, to foreign investment and labor migration; others open up new areas such as services to analysis. Recent work on the theory of political economy, including DUP (directly unproductive profit-seeking) activities and "quid pro quo "direct investment, breaks new ground. Also included are a number of previously inaccessible lectures covering such important issues as poverty and public policy. Cutting across several fields of economics, including public finance and development, these provide masterly syntheses and overviews of broader issues.
In The Wind of the Hundred Days, a new collection of public policy essays, Jagdish Bhagwati applies his characteristic wit and accessible style to the subject of globalization. Notably, he argues that the true Clinton scandal lay in the administration's mismanagement of globalization -- resulting in the paradox of immense domestic policy success combined with dramatic failure on the external front. Bhagwati assigns the bulk of the blame for the East Asian financial and economic crisis -- a disaster that prompts him to use as his title the poet Octavio Paz's image of devastation "I met the wind of the hundred days" -- to the administration's hasty push for financial liberalization in the region.The administration, Bhagwati claims, has also mishandled the freeing of trade. The administration-hosted WTO meeting in Seattle ended in chaos and the launch of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations was dashed. Bhagwati shows how the administration's failure to get Congress to renew fast-track authority can be attributed to an unimaginative response to the demands of a growing civil society. In several essays, he shows how free trade and social agendas both could have been pursued successfully if the concerns of human-rights, environmental, cultural, and labor activists had been met through creative programs at appropriate international agencies such as the International Labour Organization instead of the WTO and via trade treaties. Bhagwati also criticizes the claim that "globalization needs a human face," arguing that it already has one. He faults the administration for embracing unsubstantiated anti-globalization rhetoric that has made its own preferred option of pursuing globalization that much more difficult.
Volume I, Wealth and Poverty, addresses domestic or internal development problems.Essays in Development Economics collects many of Jagdish Bhagwati's writings that have established him as a major postwar developmental economist. The selection is diverse and highlights the close relationship and mutual reinforcement in Bhagwati's research between economic theory, empirical validation, and policy debate.Volume I, Wealth and Poverty, addresses domestic or internal development problems. Its 22 essays are divided into five parts covering Development Theory and Strategy; Economic Structure: Regularities and Explanations; Class Structure, Poverty, and Redistrbution; Technology and Employment; and Eminent Economists: Sketches and Commentary.Volume 2, Dependence and Interdependence, deals with international or external problems and its 20 essays are in four parts covering North-South Issues; Developmental Strategy: Import Substitution versus Export Promotion; Foreign Assistance; and International Migration and Investment.Within each volume, the essays are topically grouped and preceded by brief introductions by the author discussing his current views of the nature of the contributions and the relationship among them. In several cases, previously unpublished papers or postscripts to previously published papers have been added to round out the sections.
Professor Bhagwati has brought together here his most important theoretical writings on international economics. A major contribution to the pure theory of international trade-his Economic Journal survey of the subject-is reprinted and provided with an addendum which brings it up to date. In addition there are papers on propositions relating to gains from trade, and papers on tariffs, quotas and subsidies, which cover both 'positive' and welfare aspects of trade theory. Reprinted here are his well-known papers on immiserizing growth, including a recent generalization, and on the theory of optimal policy intervention under domestic distortions. Four important essays on growth and development round out the volume. The fifteen essays reprinted in this collection comprise all the most original contributions and surveys which have established Professor Bhagwati as a leading theorist of international trade. The wide range of topics covered makes the whole book invaluable to all students of international economics.